Mudra West expands its mandate within Lonely Planet

The development of the Indian guides will take place locally in India through the establishment of an Indian Lonely Planet publishing capability.

Lonely Planet (LP) has handed over the creative mandate for its travel guide books business to Mudra West. There is no incumbent agency as the LP Guide Book is yet to be launched in India.

Recall that in the month of January, afaqs! reported Lonely Planet's hunt for a creative partner for its travel guidebooks offering. Now, after the win, Mudra West's immediate mandate will include work on the launch campaign for the official foray of Lonely Planet's travel books in India.

On choosing Mudra West, Sesh Seshadri, general manager, Lonely Planet India says, "We are very excited about working with Mudra and the progress of our new guides, the first ever created in India by our talented new Indian team. Mudra inspired us with their marketing ideas and vision for how to launch and develop Lonely Planet’s brand in India."

Mudra West also handles the creative duties for Lonely Planet's travel magazine business in India for over two years now.

Along with Lonely Planet travel books and magazines, the agency even handles the creative duties for four brands under the Worldwide Media umbrella. The magazines managed by Mudra West include GoodFood magazine, TopGear, Filmfare, and Femina.

The mandate for GoodFood magazine was awarded to Mudra West in October 2011, and the creative duty for TopGear was awarded to the agency in early May. The agency looks after the creative duties for Filmfare, and Femina since 2009.

Commenting on the new win, Arijit Ray, President, Mudra West says, "Lonely Planet is an iconic brand in the travel space. For us it has been a privileged association. We had a great time launching the magazine in the country. And now look forward to working closely with the Lonely Planet team to orchestrate the launch and positioning of the Lonely Planet guides, in India."

Founded by Tony and Maureen Wheeler, the Lonely Planet brand is a wholly-owned subsidiary of BBC Worldwide. It has distributed English language guides in India since the 1980s, and these guides have primarily been purchased by expatriates and inbound travellers. But, the Indian travel market is growing rapidly, and LP sees an opportunity to speak directly to Indian audiences by producing travel guides for Indians, written by Indians. Hence, the development of the Indian guides will now take place locally through the establishment of an Indian Lonely Planet publishing capability. With this, LP India intends to launch both international and domestic guides.

Lonely Planet’s Indian publishing team will drive the development of the new local products from offices in Gurgaon, Delhi. LP will initially launch both international and domestic guides for Indian travellers and will expand its local content offering across a range of platforms, including the internet.